Friday, July 29, 2011

As an update to yesterday's post about the damage to the old Jade Mountain neon sign, many readers are concerned about preserving what's left of it and have ideas about how to save it.

Anonymous described in a comment two attempts to save the sign a few years ago: "Let There Be Neon, the Manhattan based neon sign company that made the neon Shoolbred's sign offered Mrs. Chan, the owner of the building that once housed Jade Mountain, money to buy the old neon sign and the Chow Mein sign. Jeff the owner of LTBN refurbishes classic old neon signs and saves them or loans/donates them to a neon museum. She never responded to him."

"Shoolbred's carefully removed the sign and placed it face up so as not to break the neon. Originally, Shoolbred's owners, (Robert Morgan and William Ivey Long) asked if they could buy/use the old sign while it was still up and work it into the new bar somehow. The original plan was to keep the sign in place and simply work the new facade around it.

After Mrs Chan said no, Shoolbred's decided to replace the old neon sign with another large neon sign to pay homage to the once beautiful Jade Mountain sign... The Chow Mein sign did however remain in place. And Shoolbred's found the power supply and wired it to a breaker. They would light up the old sign which eventually burned out on one side and just read Chow and the other side lit up Mein. It would flicker on and off and really made for a classic New York sight from the 60s or 70s. Eventually the sign burned out all together and it was decided to let it lie in peace."

Anon suggests, "If someone wants to get in touch with Mrs Chan or her son Nick about the signs and try one last time to save them you should probably drop by Shoolbred's and leave a letter with them to get to the Chan family."

Reader lxe let us know, "Spoke to Dean Maroulakos the General Mgr of Shoolbred's and Ninth Ward today. He asked that anyone with historic/preservation concern for this sign please contact him through email at info@ninthward.com or call his cell 646 275 0461 so he can direct you to the landlord."